Note that general criticism will be assigned the subheading "History and Criticism." Also note that critical studies of a single work will take the title as a subheading.

Individual Authors: Books By

Since you will already have the texts you are writing about, running an Author search might seem unnecessary. But Author searches often uncover collections of letters, essays, and non-fiction works that shed light on both the writer and the work. An Author search on Morrison, Toni retrieves--

Not in the IC Library?

WorldCat via FirstSearch is a "union catalog" that allows you to search the holdings of over 10,000 libraries from accross the country and around the world. Check WorldCat to discover what the entire universe of possible resources looks like for your topic. User Advisory:

Because this is such an enormous database you need to choose a "Limit Type to" before you begin. Most commonly you will be looking for "Books," "Visual Materials" (for example DVDs), or "Sound Recordings."

I recommend you avoid the "Author phrase," "Title phrase," and "Subject phrase" search fields and use "Author," "Title," or "Subject" instead. The "phrase" searches must be exact and are unforgiving.

If your topic is time-sensitive, try focusing on a recent time span under Year.

When you find an item you want you can request an interlibrary loan by opening the WorldCat record and clicking on "ILL (order via interlibrary loan)," which you'll find toward the top of the record under "External Resources." This will connect you to Ithaca College Library interlibrary loan, where you log in using your usual Netpass name and password. Logging in opens a form where all the identifying data will have automatically been transferred from the WorldCat record. All you have to do is click "Submit."

Web Resources

Selected Gateway Sites

Voice of the Shuttle: American Literature: For many this is still the gold-standard of gateway sites, though the sprawl of listed links requires careful scanning. There is a Minority Literatures section, with links to subsections on African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Native American, and Jewish American literatures. There is also a set of links for Literary Theory on the Web.

Selected Author & Topic Sites

James Fenimore Cooper Society: See esepcially "Articles & Papers about Cooper" and note that you can browse by "Cooper Title" or "Major Subject."

Poe Webliography: Thorough, if not well organized. Begin with "Starting Sites" and "Literary Guides" under Navigation Bar.

Web of American Transcendentalism: An excellent gateway to materials on the movement and the individual writers associated with it: Emerson, Thoreau, the Channings, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, and Bronson Alcott. For more on Emerson and Thoreau, try theTranscendentalists site: click on the "Ralph Waldo Emerson" or "Henry David Thoreau" and look at "Emerson: Analysis" or "Thoreau: Analysis."

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Scroll down past the works and the "new" links for the categorized Hawthorne resources.

Life and Works of Herman Melville: This hasn't been updated for ten years and many links are dead, but there is no better site to substitute and certain features such as the "publishing history, excerpts, contemporary reviews" for each of Melville's works are valuable .

Virtual Hemingway: from the Hemingway Society, and you can only link into it from the Society's home page, so find the link on the left. This is probably the most comprehensive set of links for online resources.

F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary: Created at the University of South Carolina for Fitzgerald's centenary in 1996, this site has not been updated in years, but the resources are still useful.

Sylvia Plath: A sampling of criticism on the major poems. Among the personal tribute sites Plath inspires, the Sylvia Plath Homepage is notable for its ample linked criticism.

Anniina's Toni Morrison Page: A handy selection of criticism on the novels. Headings in the site's table of contents are not links but the tiny icons preceding them are.

Don DeLillo's America: Probably the best DeLillo site--scroll down to the content categories and poke around.

E-Books on the Web

Note: Most books freely available on the Web are out of copyright--some works from the early 20th century and potentially anything written earlier. For full text e-books still under copyright, check the IC Library database Ebook Central (formerly ebrary) .

Google Books: Advanced Search: If you're looking for full-text books, be sure to use the Advanced controls here to limit your Search to "full view only" and your Content to "books." Note the availability of Title, Author, and Subject searching.

Online Books Page: Over 35,000 full-texts, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.

Bartleby.com: Take advantage of the links here to limit your search to Reference, Verse, Fiction, or Nonfiction. Note that you can also browse indexes of Authors, Subjects, and Titles.

Citation Help

MLA Citation

MLA is the citation style used by most disciplines in the Humanities. Here is my guide to the latest (2016) update of the MLA style.